New Hydrogen Europe Board

Hydrogen Europe has a new board. The European hydrogen association, formerly known as New Energy World Industry Grouping (NEW-IG) until it changed its name in November 2015, elected three new board members at the end of this June. Its chair has since been Raphaël Schoentgen, director of research and technologies at French energy supply company Engie. He followed in the footsteps of Pierre-Etienne Franc, the previous chair of Hydrogen Europe. The new treasurer is Didier Pfleger, vice president of Germany/Austria at Alstom. Michelin’s Valérie Bouillon-Delporte is now responsible for the transportation market. Andreas Frömmel from FuelCell Energy Solutions was promoted to deputy chair in addition to his responsibilities as manager for energy transformation solutions.

Frömmel stressed that it was now time to go full speed ahead when it comes to commercializing the technology: “The technology is mature and ready for upscaling. To get to the next level, we need to continue using large sector-crossing demonstration projects to illustrate its potential.”

Hydrogen Europe has meanwhile grown into a network of nearly 100 large and small member companies from 23 European countries. All of them share the goal of deploying hydrogen and fuel cell technologies across Europe. To grow further, the newly elected board decided on opening its membership ranks to state associations. Talks with the relevant organizations from France and Germany are underway.